Taksim Commune: Gezi Park and the Uprising in Turkey
A video by Brandon Jourdan and Marianne Maeckelbergh
This short documentary tells the story of the occupation of Gezi Park, the eviction on 15 July 2013, and the protests that have continued in the aftermath. It includes interviews with many participants and never before seen footage.
Since the end of May 2013, political unrest has swept across Turkey. In Istanbul, a large part of the central Beyoğlu district became a battle zone for three consecutive weeks, with conflicts continuing afterward. So far five people have died and thousands have been injured.
The protests were initially aimed at rescuing Istanbul’s Gezi Park from being demolished as part of a large-scale urban renewal project. The police used extreme force during a series of police attacks that began on 28 May 2013, and which came to a dramatic head in the early morning hours of Friday 31 May when police attacked protesters sleeping in the park.
Over the course of a few days, the police attacks grew to shocking proportions. As the images of the heavy-handed policing spread across the world, the protests quickly transformed into a popular uprising against the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his style of authoritarian rule.
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Taksim Commune: Gezi Park And The Uprising In Turkey from brandon jourdan on Vimeo.